


Pigs, Legs and Faulty Carts

by seeminglyincurablesentimentality (myinnerchildisbored)



Series: Rose Shelby vs. All the Bastards [16]
Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-04
Updated: 2019-07-04
Packaged: 2020-06-09 16:22:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19479598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myinnerchildisbored/pseuds/seeminglyincurablesentimentality
Summary: Grace has had the bastard, Rose has had a gutful.OrThe post-Charlie runner.





	Pigs, Legs and Faulty Carts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [IrelandForever](https://archiveofourown.org/users/IrelandForever/gifts).



> "...`it would have made a dreadfully ugly child: but it makes rather a handsome pig, I think.'"
> 
> Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Curly was running his hands over the swollen flank of the big white one, feeling for the foal. Rose perched on the side of the box, watching. You could see the little horse moving inside the big one.

“Is it coming out soon?” she asked.

“Soon. In the night.” Curly stroked the horse’s nose gently, making huffing horse-language noises.

“How can you tell?” The big white one had been just as enormous three weeks ago, really.

“ ‘cause I know.”

“Will we call a doctor?” Rose asked. “Or midwives?”

When Curly laughed it sounded like he was sobbing; you wanted to be able to see his face to know if he was happy or sad.

“No,” he said. “She knows what to do. And I’ll stay, just in case.”

“Horses are better at havin’ babies than people, sounds like.”

“Horses are better than people at loads of things, beetle.”

“Can I watch when it comes out?” Rose hopped off the box and brought her face close to the bulging horse belly, resisting temptation to poke and feel for a hoof or something.

“You’ll be in bed.”

“I was in bed when _she_ was having _it_ ,” Rose pointed out. “Screamed the bloody house down, she did, even though she’d a load of people in there with her.”

“Yea?”

“Yea. Sounded like a dog on fire.”

“Scary, eh?” Curly fished a carrot from his pocket and the big white one started nibbling happily.

“No.” Rose hand her hand so close to the horse within the horse now she was nearly touching the fur. “Just bloody loud. Woke me up and everything.”

“That’s orright,” Curly said, wiping his hand on his trousers. “Babies are well worth a bit of noise.”

“I’d rather a horse baby than a whore’s baby,” Rose grumbled.

“Ah, now, R-rosie…” Curly winced. “That’s no w-way to talk.”

The bouncing words only came out when Curly was nervous or agitated and it gave Rose a twinge of guilt.

“Sorry,” she muttered.

“You’re orright,” Curly said. “It’s good havin’ a brother, you’ll see.”

“D’you have a brother?”

“No.” Wistfully, Curly fished out another carrot and held it up to the horse. “Always wanted one but.”

“D’you want _it_?” Rose offered.

“Don’t think they’d go for that,” Curly said with a smile. “But…d’you want to read another bit?”

Rose retrieved her copy of _Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland_ from the bag hanging on the hook by the door and climbed onto a half-chewed bale of hay. Grace had given her the book a couple of days after screaming the bastard into the world, no doubt to keep Rose out of the way while everyone went daft over the crumpled pink thing. It wasn’t bad though, she had to admit; it was hard going with huge words, but it was wild. She’d read the whole thing already once, it’d taken her four weeks, nearly all the bastard’s life. Curly settled against the wall next to her.

“The Fish-Footman began by producing from under his arm a great letter, nearly as large as himself, and this he handed over to the other-” Rose began.

“Fish-Footman…” Curly said shaking his head. “Can you imagine?”

“I _know_ ,” Rose said. “The other one’s a frog, see, there’s a picture-“ she tilted the book so Curly could see “- but it gets even stranger. Your woman on the next page, the duchess, she has a baby that turns to a pig.”

“She never!”

“She does. Listen…”

Rose read on and Curly listened – all about the duchess and the baby and the Cheshire cat and half into the mad hatter’s tea party – until piercing shrieks ripped them back into the stable. It was so loud and so sudden, Rose nearly dropped the book and the big white one started stomping.

“What is that?”

“It’s orright, beetle,” Curly said soothingly, one hand on the startled horse’s nose, the other on Rose’s arm, stroking them in unison. “It’s only the pigs.”

Curly’d brought the pigs on a cart, he’d picked them up on his way. A monster of a sow and four piglets, Rose had watched him struggle herding them into a spare pen.

“What’re they doin’ to them?” she asked.

“Taking the little ones down to the kitchen.” Curly found another carrot and the big white one started to settle. “Herself’s not pleased by the sounds of it.”

“Only the piglets?”

“Suckling pig,” Curly said. “For your dinner, tomorrow.”

“What’s suckling pig?”

“It’s good.”

“Yea?” Rose said dubiously.

“Very tasty.”

“Are you stayin’ to have some as well?”

“Ah, no.” Curly waved her away. “You’ve guests. And I’ll be off early, when she’s foaled. First light. Or before.”

Rose sighed. No matter who was coming to ogle the human baby and eat the pig babies, they weren’t going to be better company than Curly.

“It’s orright. I’m taking the sow, I won’t go hungry.”

“I’m a bit,” Rose said.

“Yea, me as well.” Curly glanced at her with a sideways grin. “Will you go get us a picnic?”

“Sweet things or salty?” Rose asked, already brushing the straw off her dress.

“Both, o’course.”

“Of course.” Curly dug into his pocket and started feeding the horse another carrot.

“How many carrots d’you have in your pockets?”

“As many as I need,” Curly smiled.

#

Her father and Grace were upstairs in their bedroom, Rose could hear the low murmur of them talking when she went up to her room to retrieve a secret cache of chocolate. Silently, she crept to the closed door and pressed her eye to the keyhole. They were on the bed, the bastard between them, touching its soft belly and holding up their fingers for it to try to grab onto. Smiling like they’d gone soft in the head, both of them.

She’d not even known her father was home.

It made her want to kick a kitten. Tommy rarely got in before she went to bed and when he was all he wanted to do was stare at the bastard, as if it was going to disappear if you stopped looking. It’d bewitched him, the wrinkly little fuck, cast a spell even though it couldn’t even talk. It was nearly impressive.

#

He came into the stable much later, her father, when it was dark and the horse was starting to get grumpy with pains.

“Orright, Curly?” he asked.

“Lovely,” Curly said. “She’s goin’ well, the old girl.”

“Slow but.”

“It’s orright, I’ve had good company.” Curly nodded towards Rose, back up on the wall.

“Is that where you’ve got to,” Tommy said.

“Yea.”

“Come on down.” He reached up and Rose allowed herself to be lifted off the wall. “Orright, off you go, it’s late.”

She glared up at him in disbelief.

“But-“

“Nash, chavi,” her father said. “You don’t want to be here when the goin’ gets rough.”

“You’ll come see the foal tomorrow, eh?” Curly said with a wink. “Watch it work out its legs.”

“Will it be all white, d’you think?” Rose asked.

“We’ll have to see.” Curly shrugged. “So long as it doesn’t turn into a pig we won’t mind, will we?”

“Rosie,” Tommy said firmly. “Out.”

“Good night, Curly,” she said.

“Sleep tight, beetle.”

#

An idea Rose woke in the dark, jerking her wide awake instantly. There was a fully formed plan standing to attention right in the centre of her, just waiting to be executed. By the time her eyes had adjusted, she was already out of bed and half-dressed.

Rose knotted her shoelaces together, hung her boots around her neck and left her room soundlessly, on stockinged feet, holding a lamp turned as low as it would go.

Cold seeped into her toes when she abandoned the carpets for the hard, bare stairs leading down to the cookery dungeons. There was a different kind of silence down there, the kind that didn’t even have the rustling of trees outside or the stray sounds of night birds; it made the tiny creak of the door to the dry room seem like a factory siren. Rose stood in the open door, convinced she’d woken the whole house; forcing herself to count to a hundred before she was sure no one was coming.

The four piglets were strung upside down on big, mean-looking hooks; their bellies slit, their innards gone and their blood caught in bowls and taken away to make something appalling for breakfast.

She had to climb onto the cutting table to reach them.

It was surprisingly heavy, her chosen piglet, once it was off the hook and hanging limp and cool in Rose’s arms. Its mouth was a little open, ready to receive an apple perhaps, and its eyes were glazed white and still. The ears were still floppy and rough with emerging bristles.

Rose’s heart was hammering hard enough to make the piglet vibrate against her chest as she eased open the door to the nursery. It was right next to the master bedroom. There was a connecting door that was often ajar. Tonight though, it was closed; which meant her father had gotten lucky as well, not just Rose herself.

The bastard was sleeping in the baskety thing on the stand, wrapped up and oblivious.

Rose got one of the cloths, folded and stacked on the table by the window, and tried to swaddle the piglet the same way. It wasn’t easy, she’d to fold the legs inwards at awkward angles, but the result was close enough. There was a drawer of knitted bonnets, sent down from Grace’s sister or auntie or cousin, and Rose forced one of them over the piglet’s ears and tied it under the snout.

She left the piglet parcel on the small sofa and, ever so gently, lifted the bastard from its bed. It snuffled and stirred, but it didn’t wake up.

When they took the bastard downstairs, they used another baskety thing, one with handles on it; and it was parked on the chest of drawers now. Rose lowered the bastard into it, holding her breath. Again, there was some snuffling and a soft little grunt, before it went on sleeping. Carefully, Rose took the baskety thing by the handles, set it on the ground and pushed it underneath the sofa.

She picked up the piglet and lay it into the bastards’ bed, turning it onto its side a little. In the semi-dark of the room, you could barely tell something was amiss.

The nursery door closed with hardly a click and Rose slipped away towards the stairs, sitting down at the top to put on her shoes. The first light of dawn was creeping over the top of the stable as Rose pulled the front door shut behind her; dizzy with the strangeness of the morning.

#

Curly was coaxing the sow onto the cart when Rose rounded the corner of the stable.

“You’re up early,” he said.

“How’s the foal?” Rose asked.

“Beautiful.”

“White?”

“With a black mark shaped like a fish on the side.” Curly hooked the back of the cart shut. “A trout…what’re you doin’?”

Rose grinned at him from the cart’s bench.

“Getting a lift,” she said.

“Why?”

“To see Alice and Helen and James and them,” Rose said. “Didn’t he tell you to take me?”

“No,” Curly said. “Tommy didn’t say.”

“Forgot to, maybe,” Rose shrugged.

“He’s good memory,” Curly pointed out. “Doesn’t forget things.”

“Everyone forgets things sometimes.”

“Yea?”

“I do, loads of times,” Rose said, glancing up at the dark windows of the big house. “You do, as well.”

“Do I ever,” Curly sighed.

“Will I run in and wake him?” Rose asked. “So he can tell you himself? I will.”

“Ah, no…” Curly climbed up next to her and took the reins. “Man needs his sleep. Gets little enough of it, Tommy does.”

He clicked his tongue and the cart rolled on, the sow grunting a sad farewell to her gutted offspring; unaware that at least one of her children was passing its first morning in the afterlife sleeping on freshly laundered sheets, its ears warm and toasty.

#

“Are you in a rush?” Curly asked when they’d been rumpling down the road for half an hour or so.

“Not really.”

“Good, that’s good.”

“Why is it?”

“We’ve to drop off the sow.”

“Where?”

“Burntwood.”

“Who’s in Burntwood?” Rose asked.

“The woman who’s gettin’ the sow.”

“For a present?” Rose cocked an eyebrow.

“Yea,” Curly smiled sadly. “You could say that.”

“How long’ll it take?”

“Not so long,” Curly said. “I’ll take you swimming in the Chasewater after, eh? If it warms up.”

“Yea?”

“You can dive for treasure.”

“There’s no treasure in the Chasewater, Curly,” Rose said.

“Beetle,” he said solemnly, “there’s treasure in the strangest places.”

#

The woman, who was getting the pig, spat on the ground and cried and hissed at Curly that it wasn’t longing for a sow that woke her in the night, drenched in her own tears. He stood, with his head bowed, one hand clutching his hat to his chest, the other holding out the length of rope with the sow at the other end, perfectly still. She did take the rope in the end, when the rage burnt itself out, and dragged the sow ‘round the corner to tether it by the back door.

Rose watched from the cart, stricken and fascinated.

“Why’d she get the pig?” she asked as soon as Curly, still visibly shaken, was back beside her.

He looked at her and forced a smiled onto his long face, it nearly made his eyes disappear.

“That’s not a nice story,” he said. “Is it warm enough for you? To swim?”

“What story?”

“Are you hungry?”

“Ah, Curly…” Rose groaned.

“We’ll find breakfast,” he said. “And then we’ll find the water. Orright, Rosie?”

“Orright,” she said, certain that she wouldn’t be able to eat a thing.

It’d be impossible getting anything down her throat, her heart seemed to have moved up in there, throbbing dully in time with the bumping of the cart. But then, when Curly procured a couple of cobs from a stall by the road, Rose found herself not just eating them, but enjoying them. It was as though she had fallen down a rabbit hole herself, just like Alice in the book, to a place where the bread was good, the sun was warm and the light underwater made her grin wildly as she swam; even though she knew that the world above held nothing for her but troubles. They were for later, it seemed.

There was nothing she could do about it now; she’d done enough, really. She might as well enjoy herself as best she could before trouble came to find her, Rose figured as she lay on the grass by the freezing Chasewater, letting the sun dry her, listening to Curly’s quiet sing-songing to the horse.

“Come on,” he called, just when she was about to fall asleep; her whole body light with warmth. “Your mates’ll think you’ve forgotten them.”

#

Not three miles down the road there was an almighty crack and one of the wheels came off.

“Ah, now…” Curly sighed as he surveyed the damage. “Really…”

Rose stood by the side of the road, holding the horse by the reins.

“Can you fix it?” she asked.

“Not without t-t-tools.” Curly was rubbing the back of his neck.

“We could leave it,” Rose suggested. “Leave the cart and ride.”

Curly shook his head, whistling tunelessly through his front teeth.

“Why not?”

The cart wasn’t very nice, clearly, and Curly was probably the last person on earth who still preferred something horse-drawn to a motor, there’d be no shortage of other carts to use back home.

“Things,” he said. “Can’t leave the things…”

“What things?”

Rose walked the horse closer to the cart and peered in the back. Whatever the ‘things’ were, they were in boxes, still half-hidden under a canvas cover that had slipped when the cart when on its arse.

“Right…orright…” Curly hunched over a little and came back up with a deep breath. “Give’er here.”

He took the reins from Rose and tethered the horse to the side of the cart, before leading Rose over to the other side of the road.

“Here,” he said, gently pushing her down in the shade of a tree until she was sitting.

Rose looked up at him quizzically.

“I’ve to put the things on the horse.” Curly was taking off his jacket. “Take’em from the boxes, put’em in bags.”

“And?” Rose asked.

Curly draped his jacket over her head.

“Really?” Rose asked, muffled by the jacket.

“I get you when I’m done,” he said. “I’ll be quick. No peaking, eh?”

“Curly, it’s hot.”

“They’re not ch-children’s things,” Curly said. “Don’t look. P-please?”

“Orright.”

She meant it, it didn’t matter whether he told her what things they were at any rate; they were bound to be guns. It was hot under Curly’s jacket, airless and hot and it smelled of horses, but it was nice. Like being in a very small tent, all alone. It made Rose think of the bastard, all alone under the sofa; and, for a little while, she cried. Not for the bastard, she didn’t think so, they’d probably found it by now anyway. She couldn’t quite tell why she was crying, not really, it was more a matter of tears having no other way out of her.

“Oh, my days, you’re all red,” Curly exclaimed when he lifted the jacket of her.

Rose wiped her hands over her face, again and again, making sure the tears mixed in with her sweat.

“Told you it was hot,” she said. The horse was next to Curly now, saddlebags on either side and a bundle made of the canvas and some rope in the middle.

“You’ll fit in front,” Curly said. “Just.”

“And you?” Rose asked.

“I’ll walk.”

Rose cocked her head and gaped at him.

“Back to Small Heath?” she asked. “From here?”

Curly shrugged.

“Nice day for it,” he said.

#

He wasn’t wrong, Curly; it was a nice day for it. It was beautiful and green and the air was full of wild smells. Especially in between places, where there was nothing, just the two of them and the horse and the things. It was a different sort of nothing than the one surrounding the big house, it seemed. It wasn’t vast and terrifying and lonely; just calm and big, with enough room for everyone. Rose was swaying in time with the horse, the parcel of things poking into the small of her back with every other step, Curly’s hat moving in front of them, humming noises drifting from underneath.

She closed her eyes, turned her face to the sun and everything turned red.

“What time is it, you reckon?” she asked.

“Half-ten,” Curly said decisively.

There was a flock of small birds, swooshing in fancy swirls close to the ground. She’d have found the piglet by now, Grace. Or that nursemaid they’d gotten, Frances. Or, the thought raised every hair on Rose’s arms, her father. They were swallows, the little birds, Rose thought they were at any rate.

Suddenly she felt very alone on the horse. Rose swung a leg over, jumped to the ground and fell into step next to Curly. He looked down at her in surprise.

“It’s a long way,” Rose said. “Thought I take a load off her.”

Curly grinned and rubbed his free hand across her back, the same way he did to his horses.

“That’s kind, beetle.”

Somewhere deep in Rose’s belly, something spiky and hard was blindly feeling its way around. It was pricking her soft insides, snagging on bits of her innards. It felt a bit like a hedgehog. An old one with blackened bristles.

#

In the early afternoon - one-twenty-five, according to the precise clock ticking away in Curly’s guts – the thought of food could no longer be pushed aside. Rose couldn’t push it aside, at any rate. Curly, it seemed, was some a cross between a camel and a steam train, lumbering on at a slow but steady pace with no need of anything at all.

“Once upon a time,” Rose called down from her newly resumed position on the horse, “there was an evil king, who had his men steal all the food in all the land.”

Curly hummed without turning around.

“The people were starving, terrible business,” Rose went on. “But then a knight came riding in, on a horse with metal plates all over it. Rode ride up to the castle, stuffed to the ceiling with cake and bacon and all the bread for miles, and demanded they give the food back.”

“Are you hungry, Rosie?” Curly asked.

“Not very,” she lied.

“Did he give it back?” Curly walked on, the horse in his wake like a dog. “The king? The food?”

“No,” Rose sighed. “They poured a barrel of boiling oil over them, the knight and the horse. They fell in the…the whatsit…the rivery circle ‘round the castle and drowned.”

“Dreadful.”

“Yea.” They walked on, the hedgehog in Rose’s belly now enjoying the company of a small, savagely growling tiger.

“Right,” Curly said abruptly, as they were walking into Lynn.

“Right,” Rose echoed.

Curly tied the horse to a tree in front of a church and put Rose’s hand on the rope.

“You stand guard.” His smile looked a little pained. “I’ll be only a minute.”

He nodded towards the pub on the other side of the square.

“Orright…”

As Curly went off towards the pub, Rose could tell he was forcing himself to walk without hopping, stuffing his hands in his pockets to keep them still. It was orright for her father and uncles to walk into any place they pleased, dressed as they were, or for Johnny Dogs, who could talk anyone into the wall and out of their money before they knew what was happening; but Curly, with his earring and his nerves and his differentness didn’t like dealing with strangers. Often they didn’t like dealing with him either.

Rose chewed her thumbnail, keeping her other hand on the rope, guarding the horse and the things. The pub swallowed Curly and time slowed, while Rose’s heart sped up. If he ran into trouble now, some fucking farmer wanting entertainment with his pint, she’d be left with the horse and the things and only a very vague idea of how to get home.

He came back out though, a couple of minutes later, crossing the square much more quickly this time.

“Up you go…”

Curly handed Rose a parcel wrapped in newspaper, untied the horse with one hand and lifted her back up with the other as though she weighed nothing at all.

“We’ll find somewhere n-nicer to eat, eh?” he said, already leading the horse off. “Somewhere with a stream for her.”

“Were they nice?” Rose asked. “Them in there?”

“Yea, yea,” Curly said lightly. “Nice enough.”

“They weren’t, were they?”

“Didn’t boil me in oil, at any rate.” Curly turned a corner and they were out of Lynn as quick as they’d been in. “So yea, nice enough.”

#

They went off the road a bit, til they found a stream. Curly took the things off the horse and let her go for a walk on her own; Rose unwrapped the newspaper to reveal three cold potatoes.

“All they had,” Curly said apologetically.

“Grand.” Rose gave him her brightest smile. “Lovely.”

They ate, watching the swallows race across the field, so close to the ground now their bellies were nearly touching the grass.

“Rain’s coming,” Curly announced.

Rose looked up at the cloudless sky dubiously. It didn’t look like it’d ever rain again.

“Will we beat it?” she asked.

“Not a chance.”

Rose shrugged.

“Lucky we’re not made of sugar,” she said.

Curly smiled.

“It’s not you and me I’m worried about,” he said. “But we can’t get the things wet.”

Most of Rose’s potato was gone by the time she’d finished thinking about this.

“How’d they do that in the war then?” she asked. “Did they stop the fighting when there was rain? Does it rain a lot? In France?”

They were too many questions for Curly, she could tell; he looked at her helplessly, the potato in hand, half-way to his mouth.

“Because,” Rose said more slowly, “if you can’t get guns wet-“

“What guns?” Curly asked.

“It’s orright,” Rose said. “I know it’s guns, the things.”

Curly put his potato down and shook his head.

“No guns,” he said. “Guns…my days.”

Rose frowned. She’d been sure of it, but it didn’t look as though Curly was lying. He was a lousy liar at best.

“What then?” she asked.

He was wrestling with himself, his mouth twisting all over the place. It had to be something hideous, much worse than guns; and Rose was now positively dying to know.

“Legs,” Curly said finally.

“ _Legs_?” Rose knelt up and stared at him.

“Hands, as well.”

“People’s legs and hands?” Rose shrieked.

“Well, see…” Curly had his hat off now, kneading the rim like bread dough. “They’re not anyone’s, not yet…they’re unfinished.”

“But…what?”

Curly sighed deeply, got up and walked over to the bags and bundles on the ground. Rose drifted behind him, not sure at all anymore if she wanted to see. Gently, Curly undid the rope on the long bundle and folded back the canvas. Rose squinted, not quite daring to keep her eyes open and unwilling to fully look away.

The bundle contained seven legs, all different lengths, made of light brown wood. Rose noticed a shiver running through Curly as he looked down at them.

“They’re n-n-not va-varnished,” he explained shakily. “Not yet. We get them wet, they…they…they swell. And rot.”

Rose went down on her haunches and ran a hand over a smooth wooden calf.

“Are the hands made of wood as well?” she asked.

“Yea.”

“That’s not scary.”

Curly stared down at her, wide-eyed and gaping.

“What?” Rose asked.

“Just…” he was shaking his head like a wet dog, as if to clear it, “…the poor devils in need of them…”

“Oh…”

“…everyone of th-these…” Curly waved his hands over the pile of legs, “…to make up for the c-c-crunching and the being t-torn off…the screamin’…”

Rose took her hand off the leg as though it was on fire.

“…gettin’ stitched up in some tent…” Curly wasn’t talking to her now as much as to himself, “…frothing at the…the…”

“Can we put’em away, please?” Rose whispered.

She didn’t have to ask twice, Curly threw the canvas back over and tied the bundle up with trembling hands. He whistled for the horse and she came over to let him load her back up. Curly made to lift Rose back up, but she shook her head vigorously, she’d no desire to be near the legs and hands for the minute. The sky was starting to darken, but the bad weather was still some distance away. They walked on, Curly holding the reins in one hand and Rose’s own in the other.

“Keep an eye out for a barn, eh?” he said.

#

There wasn’t a barn for what felt like miles, but then – just as the first drops of rain started to fall – Curly spotted a low roof in amongst a cluster of trees. They’d no sooner pulled the door open and coaxed the horse inside, than a tremendous thunderclap made both of them jump. Curly shut the door on the storm and they stood in the middle of the dark, mostly empty barn, looking up at the roof for leaks, listening to the whooshing of wind and rain around them.

“This’ll do,” Curly said after a while.

They waited.

The horse was chewing on the sad remains of a hay bale in the corner. Rose was drawing swirls and stars she couldn’t really see into the dirt floor. Curly was sitting with his back against the wall, his lips moving soundlessly.

It rained.

The horse walked to the other wall and licked a rivulet of rain coming through a crack. Rose climbed up a rickety ladder to a low, empty loft and lay down, pretending she was in a treehouse in the rainforest. Curly cleaned his nails with a knife, nicking his left index finger because it was to dark. He sucked the blood away.

It rained.

The horse folded its legs and surrendered to boredom. Rose walked the length of the room with her eyes close, over and over, until she knew exactly when she was about to touch the wall. Curly, eyes closed, was drumming his fingers against his drawn-up knees.

It rained and rained.

Rose sat down next to Curly.

“Where’d the things come from?”

“Fell off a truck.”

“Why aren’t they finished yet?”

“Fell off on the way to the varnishers.”

Yawning, Rose shifted sideways until she was lying with her head on Curly’s legs. Curly took off his jacket and draped it over her like a blanket.

“Who’re they for?” she asked.

“Men,” Curly said. “Men missing hands and legs and money.”

“Will they get them for nothing?”

“Hm.”

“That’s good,” Rose murmured sleepily, the rain washing over the hedgehog inside her, calming it into softness.

“It’s the best we can do…”

It rained on.

The horse slept. Rose slept. Curly watched, waited and, after a while, slept.

#

Pale blue light was coming in through the cracks of the walls when Curly shook Rose awake gently.

“It’s stopped,” he said.

“Just now?”

“Yea.”

“Did it rain all night?”

“It did.”

They stepped out of the barn into a freezing, boggy morning. Everything was dripping and blue. Rose, still wrapped in Curly’s coat, stumbled along behind him, over the sodden field and back to the road.

The crunch of the gravel under her boots woke the hedgehog. It had grown in the night, it now took up most of her belly, it seemed.  


#

There was a phonebooth on the edge of Streetly.

“What’re you doin’?”

“Charlie’ll wonder what’s kept me.” Curly was tapping the fork, smiling. “Works.”

Rose leaned against the side of the phonebooth, watching the first warmth of the day turning the wet on the ground to clouds.

“It’s me,” Curly said much too loudly behind her. “No…no…orright…just the cart, see, the cart broke…worse luck, I know…no…no…right as rain…waited it out in a barn, Rosie and me…”

There was a pause and the hedgehog pricked up its ears.

“Rosie,” Curly repeated, louder still, his voice ringing out across the deserted road. “ ‘course she is…”

A swarm of bees was in there with the hedgehog now. Rosie had to brace herself against the phonebooth with both hands in order to stay on her feet.

“Tommy said…well, Rosie said he said…” Curly hummed and ha-ed at whatever uncle Charlie was saying back at the yard. “Two hours, three at most…yea…orright…but…hello?”

Curly came out of the phone booth and stood, his face as long as the horse’s, looking up and down the street a few times.

“Beetle?” he asked finally.

“Yea?” Rose croaked.

“Did you…”

“Yea.”

“And did you…”

“Yea.”

“Oh. Oh dear.”

“I’m sorry,” Rose said weakly.

Curly blinked at her.

“Sorry I tricked you.”

“That weren’t nice,” he said.

“I know…”

The hedgehog was hurting her now, enough to make her eyes water.

“Ah, no, no…come on…” Curly wrapped an arm around Rose and pulled her into his side. “You’re orright.”

“Can we stay here?” Rose sniffed, wiping at her eyes with the sleeve of Curly’s jacket.

“Come on.” Curly started down the road, his arm still around her. “It’s in the post whatever’s comin’, no gettin’ out of it now.”

#

The car was parked outside the shipyard. Rose touched the bonnet in passing and found it still warm under her hand. Curly and the horse were getting ahead of her now, she was dragging her feet like a pair of anvils.

The door of her uncle Charlie’s live-in shed flew open and Tommy emerged, coat billowing like he was a cowboy from the pictures as he marched towards them. Rose couldn’t take another step, her body wouldn’t allow it; just like a zebra’s body wouldn’t allow it to walk towards a hungry lion. Her father was past Curly and the horse, close enough now so she could see his face, the whiteness of it, the set of it, the stillness of it around the freezing rage in his eyes.

He stopped. Right in front of her. Staring at her. His nose reminded her of a bull’s. The hedgehog inside her exploded.

“Orright?” Rose whispered.

He was on her so fast, she’d barely time to cover her head with her arms. He’d her by the scruff of the neck, the fabric of her dress trapped alongside the collar of Curly’s jacket.

“Yea, orright,” he hissed, whacking her upside the head through the tangle of her elbows, getting her shoulders, getting her back. Rose curled inwards, her feet lifting off the ground. She couldn’t tell if he was hitting her with his hand or a shoe or a fuckin’ lamppost.

“Orright,” he was shouting now, roaring. “Bloody orright-“

He was going to turn her upside down, she was tilting. Rose wanted to put her hands out to brace herself against the floor, but he’d knock her block off if she took them down, she was sure of it.

There was a new sound – a _ck-ck-ck-ck_ – like a squirrel.

He got her on the side of the leg and she yelped, opened her eyes and twisted – or was twisted – sideways. Through her arms she could see Curly, his hands up and palms out, the way he did when he wanted to back a spooked horse into a corner. Curly was making the squirrel sound, a word’d got stuck and wouldn’t budge.

Rose could feel more hands, gripping her by the shoulders. For a terrifying moment she was sure her father was growing extra arms, turning into an octopus; it took her a second or two to realise she wasn’t getting a hiding anymore.

“C-c-c-c-c-calm down, Tommy…”

Curly was in between them and her uncle Charlie as well. For a moment it looked as though her father might have a go at either of them next.

“It’s enough,” her uncle Charlie said.

Her father took a step towards them and Rose bolted. There was a gaping shed door to the left. She scrambled up a wall of shelving until she couldn’t go any higher.

By the time she heard footsteps enter below, she had mostly stopped shaking.

“Rose?”

Carefully, she craned her head and looked over the side of the shelf. Tommy was standing in the middle of the shed, arms at his sides. He didn’t have his gun out. When he looked up, she threw herself backwards. Just not quite fast enough.

“Come down.”

Rose knelt and poked her head back over the edge. There was a sharp crease between her father’s eyebrows. It made him look angry still, but human as well.

“Did I kill i- him?”

“Did you kill him?” he repeated incredulously. “Did you kill your brother? Is that what you’re askin’ me?”

“Yea.”

“Come down!”

“No, you’ll kill me.”

Tommy stared up at her and held his hands out, palms up, impatient though rather than placating.

“No one’s getting killed and no one’s gotten killed,” he said. “Everyone’s getting’ to live another day.”

“Swear,” she demanded.

“Fuck’s sake, Rosie…”

“Not that kind of swearin’,” Rose called down.

“You’re bloody unbelievable,” her father yelled.

There was some shuffling by the door and Rose saw Curly hovering, half-in half-out of the shed; Tommy noticed him, too.

“It’s orright, Curly,” he sighed.

“You’re not s-startin’ again?” Curly asked.

“No, I’m not startin’ again.”

Curly was in the shed with them now, looking up at Rosie, tilting his head back so far his hat nearly came off.

“He has to promise,” Rose insisted.

“He can’t,” Curly called up. “But I promise he won’t do what you want him to promise not to do.”

“How can you tell?”

“ ‘cause I know.”

Very slowly, Rose swung her legs over the edge and descended. By the time she got down, Curly had disappeared again.

“Come here.”

Even more slowly, she walked over towards her father.

“Orright?” he asked quietly.

She nodded.

“Are you?”

“Am I fuck,” Tommy said.

“I’m sorry.”

“You run off like that again, I’ll have your guts for fuckin’ garters, Rosie.”

She thought her eyes were going to fall out, she could feel them going wide as anything. Her whole face was stretching all over the place

“Are you bloody smiling?”

“I’m sorry…” Rose said, beaming.

“Christ,” her father shook his head and exhaled deeply. “You’re a piece of work and a half.”

“Sorry.”

“You’re orright,” he sighed. “But you won’t have much to smile about when Grace sets eyes on you.”

“You won’t let her kill me but.”

For a moment, Tommy just looked at her; he couldn’t stop shaking his head anymore than Rose could stop smiling.

“No, Rosie, I won’t,” he said finally. “Come on.”

Curly was lingering outside.

“See?” he said when Rose stopped to throw her arms around his waist. “Told you. Nothin’ to worry about.”

“Thank you,” Rose muttered into the horse smell of his shirt.

“ ‘s nothing.” Curly smiled down at her. “You’re good company. See you soon, eh?”

“Yea,” Rose smiled back. “I read you the rest of the story, orright?”

Curly’s smile disappeared.

“Ah, no…” he said. “We’ll start another one, eh, beetle?”  



End file.
